


kachinuki

by lady_peony



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Bullying, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, mentions of physical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-03 18:25:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8725468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_peony/pseuds/lady_peony
Summary: The river normally ran on through the woods playfully, a steady song evening after evening. It was not singing now.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gramarye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gramarye/gifts).



> to Gramarye, I hope you enjoy this and are having a safe holiday wherever you are.

Nyanko-sensei shifted his position on his shoulder, a fuzzy and surprisingly heavy muffler.

"Why didn't you buy those chips?" Nyanko-sensei said. "The new spicy squid flavor! I wanted them!"

"I knew you read the paper sometimes, but I didn't know you watched the TV too." Takashi transferred his paper bag to his left arm, compensating for the weight on his right shoulder. "Just because you saw those chips on a commercial...You know Touko only asked for a few things from the store."

Nyanko-sensei sniffed. "No one has thrown any sake parties the last week. What else can I do when you spend all that time at that school place?" A paw lifted and thumped on Natsume's neck. "I just smell some taro roots and an eggplant in that bag! You couldn't fit any chips in there? Natsume is stingy! So stingy!"

"Sensei, you say that like you're not going to steal any roasted eggplant from my plate later."

A gasp. "You dare call me a thief? As your mighty bodyguard, I need to keep up my energy! Children these days are so mean to your elders!"

"Sensei." 

"What?" Nyanko-sensei said, still snappish.

"Is there someone over there?"

On the road in front of his feet, Takashi could see a dim shape like a body, lying facedown.

"Probably someone napping." Nyanko-sensei shifted. "No need to be concerned, Natsume."

Takashi hurried his pace forward. It was not dark yet, although the sky was starting to bloom gold, close to the orange-scarlet of sunset. On this road, there were meadows on both sides, trees huddling in lines. Not too many residences nearby, he knew.

Takashi placed his bag down in the grass, careful not to spill the contents. He crouched down, edged closer to the shape on the road.

There was a scent he noticed now. Strong, pungent, like overturned soil in a garden, like salted fish drying in open air.

"Natsume," Nyanko-sensei said. Takashi ignored the warning.

A wrist under his hand. The skin was a little strange. Like touching a log, the bark smooth and damp all the way through with rain.

"Excuse me," Takashi said. "Are you lost?"

The chin of the person lifted. Loose, drooping hair like willow leaves, a green so muted it slipped into gray. Dark eyes glimmering beneath them. 

A girl? Takashi wasn't always sure. It was always more polite to ask for youkai.

"Do you need help?" Takashi said, smiled reassuringly. He pulled up his elbow as the youkai squeezed his hand. Lifted them onto their feet.

"Did you like them?" The youkai spoke, a voice like water flowing down a fountain. "The gift?"

"I'm sorry," Takashi said, shaking his head. "I haven't seen this gift of yours."

"No," the youkai said. "I gave it to her, I was sure. To Reiko."

Nyanko-sensei sighed and jumped from Natsume's shoulder to waddle somewhere around his ankles.

Takashi ran a hand down the back of his head. It never got easier, doing this. But it was better, he knew, better to let them know from him, instead of chasing after glimpses and rumors.

"Ah," he said. "I'm not her. I'm sorry." He stood up straighter. "Do you want to tell me about her?"

"Oh." The youkai blinked. What looked like leaves shook from her hair. One and two, floated to the ground. "But you do look. Like family then. Of her blood?"

"Her grandson," Nyanko-sensei interjected, a paw lifting to scratch one of his ears.

"I see." The youkai bowed. "Will you tell me if she liked my gift, kin of Reiko?"

Takashi nodded. "Tell me how you met her." He sat on the side of the road in the grass, gestured to the spot next to him.

The youkai sat. Rain droplets sprinkled the grass around her with her movements.

"I am Ishikawa," she said.

 

—

 

She didn't know who the girl was at first.

It had been too hot. Ishikawa's skin shed leaves, one falling after another. Her whole self felt unsteady like a cloud, too willing to scatter at a push of wind.

_Will someone see me today?_

The knotweed carpeting the meadow had started to bloom. Tiny white blossoms on their tails whispered as Ishikawa waded through them, her feet heading down her usual path. A rodent youkai scurried across her path before her, carrying a small rucksack in its paws.

Ishikawa stepped to avoid a hole in the ground. When she turned to look, a gray rabbit popped up to sniff the air. Its ears twitched, before it leaped into the air to run ahead of her, faster than she could walk.

Maybe she should go back.

Puffs of dust rose from the road ahead of her eyes.

She twitched at the loud ringing. The sound from the things with wheels that humans rode.

"We're going to Tachibana's house today!" a voice cried out, high and laughing. A cluster of voices cheered after.

_No one has come to visit me before._

She watched the group of humans ride away chattering, the four or five of them disappearing around the bend.

She did mean to lie down on the path. But she tended to get knocked about if a human's footsteps ran over her. 

The earth was warm on her cheek. She heard the pebbles rattling in their places as small animals passed by. A green beetle passed her sight, leisurely strolled down a hole under the ground.

After some time, Ishikawa stood. Waded back through the knotweed to her spot by the river. There was a stump she liked there. 

Most days, she could sit for a little while, listen to frogs croaking cheerful songs until the moon came out.

A loud yell echoed through the clearing.

Ishikawa stopped. Inched forward to stand behind a pine tree out of sight from the sound. Peeked around its trunk.

A girl was there, near her stump. Waving a stick in her hand in odd motions, the girl leapt towards trees, swinging both of her arms. She froze for a moment when her stick met a tree branch. Slid and stepped backwards.

She opened her mouth and repeated the same yell, this time with different movements.

Ishikawa stood away from the pine tree. The girl looked too distracted to notice her.

The human girl did this among the woods, over and over, until the river blushed the same scarlet-pink as the sky.

The girl stopped by the river to splash a little water on her forehead. Took up the stick under her arm and picked up a bag onto her shoulder and walked away.

 

—

 

She saw the girl for most days after, with her same yells and odd movements.

On the days when she didn't come, Ishikawa sat on the stump by herself, after visiting her usual road.

She heard water dripping after a rain onto stones. Watched fish wriggle their way up the river like silvery arrows. Listened to the frogs sing.

Ishikawa wondered why the girl did what she did, striking out at nothing but air and the silent trees.

The next morning and the next and the next, Ishikawa lied down on the road. Waiting for someone to pass by.

_Ah. No one else came again today._

 

—

 

The girl was not by Ishikawa's stump today.

So there Ishikawa sat.

The wind above was cool, gray and white and indigo in smooth waves in the sky. Birds cooed as they settled in their nests, though in the distance, a woodpecker or two were still awake, carving out their homes in sharp rhythm.

The girl was on the other side of the river today, examining the stick in her arms.

"Mother was proud when I told her," the girl said to herself. "I showed her my nameplate from the club today, after all. Just like when she started at her own school, she said." She smiled, whirled on her feet and struck a pose. "From Miyazaki's Prefecture, their local champion, the Mountain Hawk!" The stick swung forward in a downward swoop, froze. The girl's face was intent, sharp enough to almost shine like visible light. 

After a moment, the girl laughed. "Silly, she would say, to think of what name they would call me? Mother was the Mountain Hawk. So who could I be?" She hopped off the boulder she had stood on. Looked at something on her hand and jumped a bit.

"She said I should do my best in classes too. I should go. First practice is tomorrow, anyways."

 _Was it that fun_ , Ishikawa thought, _to play games by herself?_

 

—

 

Ishikawa waited on the path.

Three pairs of shoes passed, giggling voices flitting back and forth like skylarks.

They do not see her.

 

—

 

Ishikawa waited on the path.

A quail and its chicks, all peeping, waddled in front of her. Their wings pumped as they hopped up and down over a tiny pebble in the path, crossing over to the other side beyond Ishikawa's view.

Water started falling, lightly, lightly from the sky.

No one sees her.

 

—

 

Ishikawa waited by the path.

_Will no one smile at me?_

 

—

 

Ishikawa waited by the path.

"You shouldn't stay here," a voice said. "Dangerous things run down this road."

Ishikawa sees a pair of shoes, worn and patchy with use. Then a hand, in front of her eyes.

"Come on," the voice said, impatiently.

Before she knows it, the girl has lifted her to her feet, like Ishikawa is no lighter than a young bamboo stalk.

"You should go," the girl said, smiling. 

"I..." Ishikawa turned on her feet, remembered then. "I can't go to the river today."

"Why not?" The girl spun a stick--one Ishikawa had not seen before--and lifted it to her shoulder.

There are sounds of shouts from behind the girl. Thudding sounds of running feet. "Oh," the girl tsked, irritated. "I must go now. Tomorrow, tell me what is at the river."

Her long hair lifted up as she ran away from Ishikawa, almost like a golden flag in the distance.

_The girl smiled at me. She helped me._

_I should thank her._

 

—

 

Ishikawa saw the girl walking the next day. The girl didn't stop by the path where Ishikawa had been before.

So she followed the girl. 

The girl did not walk with anyone, Ishikawa saw. Most of the time, with humans, they traveled in groups didn't they? Like flocks of sparrows, or the deer that bounded past in the spring.

The girl smiled still. She hummed a snatch of a song or two to herself, in between moments of quiet. "The picking of flowers, ah, if it were only done with you...I'll never mind if the thorns may hurt me."

They went on this way. Went upwards on a tall hill.

Ishikawa jumped. Something flew past her head. Thunked into the tree right behind Ishikawa's head.

"Why do you follow me?" The girl marched forward. Face smiling still except for her eyes. Golden pupils, her brows narrowed and pulled in.

A questioning look, like a wolf might have at a disturbance near its den.

Ishikawa stood up. A leaf twisted off her hair, snatched by the breeze.

"I...I followed you to thank you. And you had said. About the river."

"Don't need your thanks," the girl said. "You're not afraid to ask me for help? Don't you know what they call me?"

Ishikawa shook her head.

"The great and terrible Reiko-san!" The girl--Reiko, laughed at this, teeth flashing between her lips. Suddenly her look light-hearted again. "Reiko-san the fierce! Reiko-san the ferocious! I drink blood for breakfast and rob oni for pocket money! Haven't you heard?"

From behind Ishikawa, she heard terrified squeaks of what she thought were tiny forest youkai, the sounds of their footsteps in the yellow grass scurrying away into a whisper.

Ishikawa stepped aside, as Reiko stepped forward.

Reiko braced a foot on the trunk of the tree, yanked out the stick where it had tangled itself into the trunk.

Ishikawa shivered at the sight. The stick had paper covering it, plastered all over and stamped with ink. The power was strong enough to burn if touched.

She had not heard of Reiko, true. But she could tell. Reiko could be a dangerous person.

Still, Reiko had stopped for her. Had laughed at herself, at her own names as she spoke.

Like the other girl who had visited the river before, the fledgling of the mountain hawk.

"The river," Ishikawa said. Something itched in her memory. What was there wasn't something that burned. 

No. It was worse.

"Well, the river." Reiko looked at the sky. Swung the stick in her hand against the side of her knee, thoughtlessly. "It's late now huh. They wouldn't like that." Lower, beneath her short-sleeved shirt, Ishikawa could see fading purple spots on her elbow. An old scrape?

"But," Reiko said, finally, swung the stick over her shoulder. Tossed her head. "You worked so hard to find me. A new challenge is nice too. What is at the river?"

"I can show you," Ishikawa said.

 

—

 

The river normally ran playfully, a steady song evening after evening.

It was not singing now.

The light was odd. Not the soft gold or pink one would see when the sun dropped behind the mountain and owls stirred from their rest. Not the deepening blue either, when crickets began to call to one another.

Somehow, the light was green. Not the gentle greenery of the forest, but more sickly, like spreading mold.

Shadows gaped between spindly trees, stitching to one another on the small forest road that was unsteady with too many bumps and dips in the way.

Ishikawa had been here before, as many seasons as she could remember. Somehow, the path now was muddled.

From a glance to her side, Reiko seemed even surer of her own steps than Ishikawa was. The strange light drew out her sharp chin, her own glinting eyes.

Reiko's arm swung up and down. The stick in her hand did the same.

On her skin, Ishikawa could see no markings that other youkai might use to signify their powers. Some other humans too, she had heard, would use them to protect themself, or amplify their own powers. 

She marched forth in nothing but the clothes she was wearing and armed with a piece of inked wood.

"What is that?" Ishikawa said.

"What?" Reiko said, turned her head back, from where she had walked ahead of Ishikawa. "Is there something you see?"

Ishikawa reached out. "I am speaking of this."

Reiko did not shy away when Ishikawa's hand rested on her arm.

On both arms now, there were no fading spots. A violet-blue shade instead, two irregular lilypads on not one, but both forerms.

"Are you not wounded?" Ishikawa said. Humans were frail, everyone knew. Why was Reiko not afraid to go with her towards danger?

Reiko shrugged. A few strands of her hair shifted, tips sliding off from the front of her shoulder to fall to her back. "These will heal quick enough."

"Did you have a battle before this?" Ishikawa said.

Reiko turned and jumped onto a rock. Stuck out a foot and balanced on a boulder in the air. "A battle? Not much of one. I said something that was not useful." She let her foot fall, pitched her body forward with it to land on the ground. "We should keep going."

Ishikawa did not know what else to say. So she followed Reiko.

 

—

 

What was it that they had come to see?

It was dark. This was not where she meant to wander, was she?

Ishikawa was not a youkai accustomed to night. She did not sleep, did not need it. She still dreamed sometimes.

A voice from the water. A greeting. A farewell?

"This is the river?" Reiko said. She had a hand to her face, her palm cupped around her nose and mouth.

Yes. The smell of the river was wrong.

Clogging, thick. Like a stink of animal skin pulled from bone, something gnawing at the flesh.

Should they go back?

"A miasma," Reiko said, words muffled.

The plants around the stump Ishikawa sat on were not green. Were curiously colorless.

"You should stand back," Reiko said.

 _Why?_ Ishikawa thought.

Muttering, from the trees.

_You...threw._

_...threw it away..._

_Return it..._

A shriek, a split-second scream of lighting.

**"RETURN IT TO ME!"**

Leaves whipped from Ishikawa's hair into the wind, tiny twigs snapping off from trees into the wind.

Reiko was not smiling now.

A crash.

Reiko had both hands up, her stick raised.

A shadow against her. Turbulent, bleeding violet in the gloom.

The shape of a girl taller than Reiko, a weapon against Reiko's own.

"A shinai?" Reiko said, spun on her feet and skipped back.

A thrust forward—Reiko dodged—the girl struck to the left—Reiko ducked. And the shadow-girl twisted, shinai swinging up again—

Where it landed, the tree splits, a jagged scar ripping apart its middle.

Reiko leaped higher. Her muscles tensed, feet light on a branch that swung with her weight.

Another strike and the branch falls.

Ishikawa thinks she hears herself shout.

Reiko fell backwards into the wind, without even a wide-eyed glance of surprise. She landed on one side, her elbow and knee pulling in. Somersaulted swiftly forward, avoided another strike where her arm had been before.

Another shriek from the shadow-girl, snagging on the wind like claws.

"What is it?" Reiko shouts. "Where are you running to?"

The shadow seemed to loom even higher.

 **"THIS PLACE IS MINE. GO!"** The shinai rose, arced up—

Reiko jumped forward.

A crack like breaking ice, something gasping as it plunged into the waters—

The paper end of Reiko's stick is burning, greedily licked up by violet fire after it passed through the shade's arm.

The shadow girl's shinai flew, soaring furiously, without intention.

To Ishikawa's direction.

Reiko darted towards her, her weapon no longer in hand. She had dropped it a little behind her, more than half of it now disintegrated into blackening ash.

"Behind me!" Reiko said, kicking up chunks of moss and leaves in her run.

Two hands on Ishikawa's shoulders and it takes a moment, just a moment to fall down.

Stems and veins press against Ishikawa's cheek, the touch of leaves and dirt familiar to her face.

She turned. Tried to get up. There was something hard and flat blocking her. Beneath ground under her head. 

Ishikawa rolled over. Pulled it out.

She turned, saw Reiko on her back. Weaponless. 

The shadow girl was standing. Shinai in both hands.

Wind passed through the clearing, small twigs and leaves struggling up half-heartedly before sinking back to the ground.

The shadow moves.

"No!"

It is a feeble word from Ishikawa's mouth. Perhaps they do not hear her.

The shadow girl's form shivers when she is in motion.

Reiko does not lift her head. Her voice carried to Ishikawa's ears, nevertheless.

"You can hurt me. Drive me away. Is that what you want?" Reiko's voice was unconcerned, piercing cold as sleet. "I won't cry just because of that."

The aura around the shinai flared. "I can!"

Was this, Ishikawa thought, how humans act when they are angry? Why then, did the shadow's reply shake so much, like it would shatter in a gust of air?

"You don't want to cry?" Reiko's words hurry on like blows, relentless. "That's what children do: cry, scream, hoping someone will hear them. When you are old enough, everyone stops listening." 

The shinai lowered. Floated just above Reiko's heart. "They laughed," the shade said. "They laughed when I was crying."

"And then what? I have lost," Reiko said. "Strike if you can. But before that, what is the name of the one who defeated me?"

The shinai hovered. "I...I don't..." It drifted away from Reiko to point to the ground instead. Uncertainty. "Why did you stand in front of the sword? To protect her?" The shade gestured to Ishikawa.

Ishikawa only can see Reiko's back from here. "She said there was something interesting at the river." Reiko shrugged. "And I needed to see it."

There is a pause.

Reiko stood, brushed bark from her shoulders and skirt with quick sweeps.

Ishikawa was still standing, held the thing in her hands and offered it to the sshadow. The shadow-girl's outline was more subdued now. A hearth's glow, not a lighting wound.

The item was a wooden rectangle, with paper pressed between. An inked on name in the center.

Reiko looked at Ishikawa's hands. "Shimizu. Shimizu Haruka,"Reiko read.

Shimizu reached out. The shape of her hands trembled.

"You found it for me."

 

—

 

The next evening, Ishikawa went to the river.

It was flowing again. Frogs sang.

No one else came that day. That was all right. Ishikawa had already gone to the path to meet someone.

Reiko accepted the gift. On both arms, her wrists up to her elbows were wrapped in white bandages, the ends tied none too neatly. Ishikawa wanted to ask, but Reiko's stare that morning was especially frightening.

She had smiled though, when Ishikawa had held out the bag to her.

"Will you come in the spring?" Ishikawa asked, after Reiko bowed slightly as thanks.

"Hmm. We will see." Reiko said. 

 

—

 

The nameplate had glowed in Ishikawa's hands, moon-bright in the dissipating gloom.

"I'll take care of this," Reiko said. She knelt, picked up the shinai that had been snapped into half with the last strike.

Ishikawa had shuddered when Reiko picked up the pieces. Though the shade was gone, there was a lingering, splintering and spiked tendrils of despair.

("Look Shimizu. How dare you show off, to beat the vice-president on the first day?"

"Why are you making an ugly face? Younger students have no respect now, do they?"

A third voice stepped in, conciliatory as a frozen-over pond. "Now, you two. As the club vice-president and her seniors, it is merely a duty to teach club members the rules, shouldn't we? Don't run away from your lessons."

Hurried scuffling sounds between the ring of trees. A choked-off yell when a back hit a barrier, two other pairs of arms restraining her shoulders.

"Today," a voice said, and she saw her own shinai, the first one she bought for the school year, the one that had disappeared from her locker, leveled before her face, "which strike should we review? The knee? The throat?"

They left her with the shinai in the dirt.

A hand cradled around her right wrist. Broken.

Her nameplate, the one worn so proudly that week on her gear, had been torn and flung away from her bag.

She stopped standing a long time ago and had slid to the base of the tree.

Eventually, she got up. Limped away to home, with nothing else but tears and empty hands.

She did not pick up her shinai.)

 

—

 

"Objects have long memories," Nyanko-sensei said. Yawned. "You learned from the tea cup, didn't you. When humans use them, feelings spill through like sake into a cup. Of course, you would all forget to clean things up properly.

Was that all, Takashi thought. Feelings that stayed, like water droplets trickling, rivers carving tunnels in stony ground until the shape changed entirely?

"Ishikawa-san," Takashi said. "Did Reiko ever return?"

Ishikawa shook her head, long hair falling before her eyes. "I wanted to see her once. But there were others too, who sometimes visited the river, though none ever spoke to me."

"And," Takashi said, wanting to know. It helped more, sometimes, to hear other's words, collecting memories like pebbles from sand. "What did you think about her?"

A pause. "She was scary. I don't think she was brave. No. That is not the right word. She was...unafraid of anything else stronger than her. But I wondered why that was." Ishikawa twisted a piece of hair in her hand. Looked up into Takashi's face. "She did help me. I remember that."

 _Scary_ , Takashi thought. There were memories from before the Fujiwara's warm smiles and warm meals, his friends' cheerful greetings, the energetic youkai who pounced on him to ask him to join their picnics.

The before had been painful.

From before, not all of his jumpiness had come from flinching away from youkai.

He didn't think Reiko had been as lucky as he was now. Or Shimizu-san. 

Objects took on feelings, Nyanko said, and Takashi remembered when cruelty had seemed his only companion.

"Thank you," Takashi said, to Ishikawa. "for the story. I will look for your gift." 

She bowed back and left.

At home, after handing the groceries to Touko, Takashi pulled out his box from under the desk. Beneath a book on herbs, under bits of twine and the odd, crumpled paper, his fingers touched something.

He pulled it out.

At first, he thought it was nothing more than a gray rock.

No. Not quite. The longer Takashi stared at it, the more the gray color deepened, stained in shadows. Next to his desk lamp, the gray shifted to a rich, deep green. The shape of the rock was a little like...

Like a frog. Like one of Misuzu's constant followers.

Takashi smiled at it.

"Nya, Natsume! Natsume!" Nyanko-sensei butted against Natsume's back then bounced forward to place paws on Takashi's knee. "Touko-san has finished cooking! I can smell it!"

"Okay," Takashi said. He put the rock down on his desk besides a vaguely feline-shaped stone and several framed photos, and stood.

He heard Touko and Shigeru's voices downstairs, the gentle clink of bowls set out on a table, and stepped out of his room to join them, Nyanko-sensei bounding by his heels.

**Author's Note:**

> 1.kachinuki: in kendo, a competition method in which a person may continue to fight as long as the winner keeps winning
> 
> 2.There are a lot of [videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-T6lFrpQg8) on kendo matches available. 
> 
> 3.Ishikawa was meant to be based on the concept of a [nure onago](http://yokai.com/nureonago/).
> 
> 4.The lyrics from the song Reiko hums is from "Songs of picking Safflowers", which can be listened to [here](http://www.folkways.si.edu/traditional-folk-songs-of-japan/world/music/album/smithsonian).


End file.
